UK supermarkets saw their total till sales grow by 5.3% in the last four weeks ending 27 January 2025, climbing up from 3.6% recorded in December, data from NielsenIQ (NIQ) revealed.
Unit growth at the grocery multiples was healthy, moving up by 0.9% as food inflation eased compared to last year (+1.6% vs +6.4%). However, this growth has slowed since the start of the new year.
As people set new year’s resolutions, January usually brings a ‘healthy reset’ for consumers. NIQ data shows that 12% of British households purchased meat-free substitutes in the last four weeks. Whilst this is a small drop from 14% last year, UK shoppers have not cut back on healthy diets with double-digit growth in freshly prepared fruit (+16%) and fresh veg accompaniments which grew by 9%.
Meat, fish and poultry was the fastest growing super category, seeing a 9.1% rise as shoppers sought to cook protein-rich meals as part of new year diets. This was followed by petcare (+8.3%) and dairy products (+6.8%).
The data also showed a continued movement towards home cooking, with half of all UK households saying they cook from scratch every day or most days, with around 16% doing so more due to the rising cost of living.
As a result, we have also seen a spike in demand for ‘hacking’ ingredients to speed up or elevate the dining experience, with a boost in sales for fresh gravy (+28%), fresh dough and pastry (+18%), fresh dips (+15%) and fresh cream and custard (+14%).
In terms of retailer performance, Ocado led with a sales growth of 15.6% compared with the same period last year. This was followed by Marks & Spencer (+9.7%), which was helped by its bigger store formats which NIQ says motivated shoppers to add more items to their baskets as well as its dine-at-home deals.
There was also continued growth at the discounters Lidl (+7.8%) and Aldi (+3.8%), with both retailers gaining new shoppers and more store visits.
Commenting, Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at NIQ said: “The lift to grocery sales in the last four weeks was helped by the timing of the New Year, with a proportion of sales coming from the new year festivities which was week ending 4th January (+10.0%). However, after this, weekly growth in January was slightly lower. Whilst overall Total Till sales growth was higher than December, the underlying trend is closer to +3% which is the average growth in the most recent three weeks.
“NIQ Homescan data shows that the cost of living is still firmly consumers’ number one concern at the start of 2025. Shoppers are looking to save money and eat healthier leading to a growing trend in scratch cooking, which is one of the key behaviours driving the strong unit growth (+2%) and value growth (+6.8%)3 in fresh food categories in the last four weeks.”
